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Here lately I have been getting a couple of errors. They are pretty inconsistent though. Some days I get them all the time, and some days I hardly get them. The errors are, "dpCom: Tool-Changer Not Safe" and "Z-Move: Tool-Changer Not Safe". Any ideas on how I can' fix this? As far as I can see from inspection the tool-changer looks fine.
I had similar problem and found that one of my inductive prox. sensors had become loose and was not properly indicating the tool changer carriage was retracted.. In my case the looseness allowed the prox. sensor to become beat up by the tool carriage slamming against it over and over. As I recall the sensor was made by Balluff and cost about 60 bucks.
A coworker and I took a look at it, as far as we could tell, all the prox. sensors seemed to be working fine. Now I have been getting a new error message when I try to home the machine, I sometimes get "TlChg: Tool-Arm Timeout". What will happen is I will be running some parts and will get the "Tool-changer Not Safe" error, then go to enable my drives, and home the machine again. When I go to home the machine, I receive the Tool-Arm timeout error. Also sometimes I'll get the Invalid Switch States error while they machine actually starts to home. Also got a drawbar Timeout error a few times.
I still suspect you are having the same kind of intermittent prox. error I had. You should be able to look at the input states for the two prox sensors and catch it. Wiggle it around and check the cable connectors and cables themselves. With the drawbar added into the mix, I'd check to make sure you have good voltage levels on your DC power supply(ies). Good luck.
Thanks a lot buddy! We will check that out again
+1 for proximity sensor problems. We don't have your exact machine but I bet the changer is the same.
We had the "not safe" error too, it was the return sensor not telling the control the carriage was back. You can get to the params screen and see the switch states, cycle it a few times and it should show up. Both have to work - one forward, one back, and they switch states depending on position. If one fails it freaks out. Plus there's one for the geneva position, and one for tool 1 position / home if I remember right. Ours had the "back" carriage switch not working because the tool changer eccentric arm worked loose and was not in position in front of the prox. switch. Check that arm (the one with the bearing that runs the carousel in and out, driven by the motor) maybe it's worked loose like ours did.
How do I see the switch states? The software we use is Boss 6.1. Our parameters screen doesn't show the switch states for some reason.
I'll see if I can find the exact parameter number, it's in the maintenance screen. Our software is the DX-32, so I don't know if that is different from what is visible to each of us. The simple parameters screen for me only shows rapids rates. The other one has hundreds of parameter settings, and you can monitor different items. Do you know that screen? It's password protected, PASSWORD in caps is the password. :-)
Also, you can look at the lights on the switches once you pull the covers off. If you have the toolchanger cover off, is the eccentric arm bearing bolt tight?
I hope this helps !!
I'll check that eccentric arm bearing bolt. We also have the DX-32. I found all of the parameters just a few minutes ago on the maintenance page. Parameter #171 I believe is the one we are looking at. Now I'm just waiting for the machine to throw the error again and will try and reference that. Just learned how to understand the parameters so will be posting what I find out. Thanks again everyone for the replies. You have been very helpful
Just get to the parameter and run the toolchanger in and out using the tool load function, no need to wait for the error. I think it's even in the parameters page we're talking about under the commands below the parameters section. IIRC, I could cycle the toolchanger in and out and watch the switch states at the same time go through their changes.
That should help you pin it down quick vs. waiting for it to mess up. Ours was intermittent since the bolt was loose -
We got found out it was the tool-changer back switch. We are about to check it all out to see what is wrong with it. It just keeps switching from on to off over and over. Pretty sure this will fix it. Thanks a lot!
Yeah, ours was the same exact switch, but due to the arm coming loose. The switch was actually just fine. So check two spots: the bearing and shoulder bolt, and the set screw where the arm attaches to the motor (and cranks down on the woodruff key). We had both come loose. Hope that fixes you up! I'm curious now - please let me know what happens! :-)
So we noticed the arm was a little loose, so we tightened both of the set screws to the woodruff key. But I think the main problem was the placement of the sensor. The carriage was getting very close. When we checked the space it was only about .005". We loosened it to .030" and haven't gotten an error since. Granted it has only been a couple of days with very light usage. This next week I should get more work out of it so that will be the real test.